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Scoutdad Commodore
Joined: 09 Oct 2006 Posts: 4754 Location: Middle Tennessee
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 3:49 am Post subject: FCOL Tourney: Game 1.5 - Tony Thomas v Patrick Doyle - AAR |
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Patrick and I played our first round game on Sunday, September 5th.
Here's the after action report, as I recall it.
I'm sure I'll miss a few things that Patrick will point out:
Patrick Doyle: Kzinti
NCC + NCA + NCA
Tony L. Thomas: Orion
CA + SAL + CR + LR
Option mounts armed with Plasmas and Photons.
The game began with Patrick's Kzinti in the upper left corner (hex 0101) and my Orions in the lower right corner (hex 4230).
Patrick plotted a turn one speed of 16 while the Orions plotted 24.
Turn one was basically straight-forward movement with both forces slipping to their own right. Turn one ended at range 22.
The Orions fired all bearign phasers at the Kzinti NCC for a total of 0 points of damge.
The Kzinti fired all phasers and disruptors at the LR for a total of 11 points. 2 points of reinforcement and a single burn through on the LR, and 12 drones launched at the Orion CA.
The Orions dumped enough left over power into all available photons to fuly overload them.
Turn 2 saw the Kzinti turn away from the Orions and their 144 potential points of plasma and overloaded phtoons as the drones closed in. Judicious manuevering allowed the ample phaser-3 suite and the single Gatling to remove the drone threat.
As two turn neared it's end, the Kzinti fleet was skating the xx01 hex row and the Orions were closing in.
Just as the Orion captain was beginning to think the Kzinti were going to make a mistake and get themselves trapped against a corner facing a plasma armed opponet, the tables (and the Kzinti ships) were turned.
Ever the consumate tactician, Patrick turned to facing F at almost the last possible moment.
With his turn to a new facing, the Orion fleet was now in Disruptor arc and in overload range. What's more, rather than being trapped against a corner, Patrick turned early enough to force some hard decisons on the part of the Orion captain. With a heading of "F" in the 09xx hex row, the Kzinti captain had two directions in which he could turn to avoid incoming plasmas... In addition, if Palsmas were launched on Impulse 7 (in order to force a decison), then phaser fire could be used to reduce their damage on Turn 2.8 and again on 3.1.
Instead (and in retrospect, much to his chagrin), the Orion Captain chose to continue to close and bolt the plasmas on Turn 2.8, counting on stealth coating technology to mitigate the incoming damage. The forces ended up at a range of 2. Now the decision was how to spread the fire...
The Orion chose to bolt all bearing Plasma (2 Pl-S and 2 Pl-F), fire all OL Photons (4), and all bearing Phasers (10 that were in arc and had power available) at the NCC. The hope was to completely remove the NCC from play, probably at the cost of one Orion ship - leaving 2x NCA vs three Orions... not an easy fight, but still doable.
The Kzinti split his fire. Nearly all at the CA... but enough at the CR to make him feel it.
Two Plasma Bolts missed completely (one "S" and one "F") as did one of the OL photons. the resulting damage blew through the NCC taking out vertually every system box... except weapons and power. The NCC still had one phaser, 3 drone racks and 1 disruptor. As well as nearly undamaged Center Warp engines.
The Orions on the other hand must have had Stealth Coating applied by the lowest bidder as nearly every weapon fired this turn hit home. The CA had only 13 boxes remaining (including FRAME) and the CR lost a few crucial systems.12 additional drones were now put in flight. Three targetted on the CA and 9 on the SAL.
In an unthinking moment of panic, the Orion Captain hyped the engines on all ships (negating the +1 benefit of the stealth coating) at range 2!. The crippled CA plotted speed 16 (best available) and the other three plotted 24. The Kzinti plotted speed 16.
The Orion fleet accelerated (as did the Kzinti) and turned to their starboard. The Kzinti turned to follow. At the end of Turn 3.1, the Kzinti opened fire with all available weapons on the SAL at range 3 - gutting it.
Here's where the poor choice of Orion option mount weaponry become most apparent. The SAL only had 4 phaser 3s that would bear. These were fired at drones at a range of three... Due to range, all four were targetted on the same drone... all four rolled a "1" to hit... Darn it!
As Turn 3.2 began, Cat with One Eye took stock of the situation:
The CA was moving at speed 16, engines doubled (no stealth bonus) and 3 drones were going to impact on 3.3. 2 would reduce any shield to zero, allowing the third to do 12 internals on a ship with 13 boxes remaining.
The SAL was crippled. He could out run the 8 drones still targetted on him, but next turn would be unable to move more than speed 16, so they would hit.
The CR has some damage...
The LR was an itty bitty ship.
And 90% of the Orion wepaons had forward facing arcs.
The 2 Kzinti NCAs were undamaged and closing fast.
The NCC had enough power remaining to keep it in range for drone salvos.
This was a totally untenable situation for the Orions, so Cat with One Eye surrendered. _________________ Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
Department Head, ACTASF |
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Scoutdad Commodore
Joined: 09 Oct 2006 Posts: 4754 Location: Middle Tennessee
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 3:51 am Post subject: |
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Patrick played an amazing game. He never made a single mistake and it was a well deserved win.
He also schooled me on one of the finer points of damage allocation, and you can be sure it will be applied in future games.
Thaks again Patrick for a most enjoyable session. I look forward to many repeats (only with more appropriate forces). _________________ Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
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terryoc Captain
Joined: 07 Oct 2006 Posts: 1386
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:07 am Post subject: |
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Sounds like a great game. Congrats to Patrick and 'better luck next time' to Tony. _________________ "Captain" Terry O'Carroll, fourteen papers published including six best of issue
"Man, Terry, you are like a loophole seeking missle!" - Mike West
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Scoutdad Commodore
Joined: 09 Oct 2006 Posts: 4754 Location: Middle Tennessee
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:12 am Post subject: |
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It was indeed a great game.
I kept waiting for Pat to make a critical mistake, but he never seemed to...
I'm hoping for a rematch at Origins 2011 (if not sooner than that in FCOl Tourney #2) _________________ Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
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Ologotai Ensign
Joined: 15 Aug 2010 Posts: 4 Location: London UK
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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I watched in more most of the game - as a noob it was fascinating to watch.
One thing I didn't quite understand at the time though was that the Kzinti NCC seemed to have has all of its Frame boxes hit under the massive Orion barrage which I thought meant it was automatially destroyed.
This didn't happen which forced me back to read the rules where I realised that all of the boxes have to be and then ANOTHER frame hit scored to destroy a ship.
Regards
Andy |
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pinecone Fleet Captain
Joined: 03 May 2008 Posts: 1862 Location: Earth
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Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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Indeed, a great battle. I got to look in and watch periodically, and it seemed a very interesting game. FC online is different than face-to-face, and it takes some getting used to. |
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Patrick Doyle Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 18 Aug 2007 Posts: 208 Location: Norfolk, VA
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Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 2:10 am Post subject: Truly Enjoyable Game |
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Thanks for the game Tony, I really enjoyed it.
Ologotai, About the frame - I generally use up the frame to save my last hull boxes. If you look at the damage chart, once your hull is gone you start losing engines and weapons. Sometimes I keep one or two in reserve depending on the situation but I use them up early. That means I preserve a point or two of power or a couple weapons as early as possible.
When do we find out about round 2?
Take care all. _________________ Once again I have proven that even in the future, your photon torpedoes are built by the lowest bidder.
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Scoutdad Commodore
Joined: 09 Oct 2006 Posts: 4754 Location: Middle Tennessee
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Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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Ologotai:
One other thing... you can lose all your FRAME boxes and still be a valid ship. It's the next FRAME damage point that can not be scored that destroys the ship. _________________ Commander, Battlegroup Murfreesboro
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